I put all but half a cup of flour into the bread machine and mixed for 2 minutes (on the mix cycle). Let stand at room temperature (@ 70 degrees) for a 30 minute autolyse. Then let the bread machine knead it for 6 minutes (I let the machine cycle through the mix stage before insertingthe bread pan again), gradually adding the last half cup of flour after 3 minutes. Let it stand for another 30 minutes, then kneaded it by hand with a little bench flour (it was slightly sticky) for 1 minute.

Let rise at room temperature for 4-8 hours.

Then I punched it down, let it rest for 10 minutes, rolled it out as thin as I could (less than an eighth of an inch) into a 14" circle. Par-baked the crust for about 10 minutes at 450 on a metal pan with the top covered by foil. Topped it and finished baking.

It was excellent! A crackery crisp bite backed by some body provided by the oil. Very much Giordano's thin crust.

I've been making this crust again, this time with 1 tsp. oil, which makes an excellent cracker thin crust, too! I think you need at least a little oil in this recipe for flavor purposes. These are the best thin crust recipes I've ever made!

My recollection is that you don't have a camera, but it would be nice to see what a cross section of the crust looks like. Most people tend to associate cracker style crusts with low-hydration or medium-hydration doughs. I don't know how much bench flour you have been using, but with 1 1/2 cups of flour and 8.5 tablespoons of water (in your recipe in the opening post), I would categorize your dough as a high-hydration dough. Unless you were to do something unique with the dough, such as a layering process, I think you will have to pre-bake the skin to get a cracker quality. Have you found that to be true? Also, did you find it necessary to dock the skin to keep it from balooning up too much? I would love to see a photo of the skin at that stage also.

If I made the dough with KA mixer would the knead times be the same? I'd like to try it.

I would try it in a KA like this.. Do what buzz does with adding all but the flour, Add the flour until it is all mixed in and let it mix for a few more minutes and let it rest. Then follow the rest of his directions.

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Actually, I've changed it to 1.25 cups flour, with 8 TBS. water (I don't weight and the humidity, etc. affects my flour, so I start with 6 TBS. and add more as needed to get the dough to come together--usually it's 8 TBS.). After the autolyse the dough looks like cake batter (without the remaining flour added yet). The final dough comes out a bit sticky because of the hydration, so I use a little bench flour to give it a quick final knead to shape it into a ball. I do dock it and par-bake the crust (with foil on top) before adding sauce and toppings.

At some point, I will try to take pictures!

You can do the same with a mixer (it's a different form of a bread machine!)--

Pour all the ingredients into the mixer, except for .50 cup of the flour. Mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes. It should look like a pancake batter when you are finished. Cover and let it rest for 30 minutes.

After the rest period, start mixing the dough again on low speed for a total of 6-8 minutes (you will be able to see if the dough ball is coming together after 6 minutes). After 5 minutes into this process, start adding the remaining flour gradually.

When the dough ball is formed, again let it rest for 15-20 minutes, covered. Then put a little flour on your kneading board, dump out the dough ball (it will probably be sticky), and knead it for 30 seconds to a minute into a nice, round ball.

It is always a challenge for me to try to convert buzzís recipes given in volume measurements to bakerís percent format but I decided nonetheless to give his thin crust recipe a try and to try to convert the recipe to bakerís percent format. I used the recipe as slightly modified by buzz in his last post.

I tried as much as possible to follow buzzís instructions explicitly, using my KitchenAid stand mixer (with the C-hook), but some minor changes were necessitated. First, I used Pillsbury unbleached all-purpose flour rather than Gold Medal all-purpose flour. In measuring out the volume of flour, I used the method described some time ago by buzz at Reply 8 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1184.msg10708.html#msg10708. On that basis, the 1 ľ c. of all-purpose flour I measured out came to 6.05 ounces. Together with a teaspoon of bench flour I ended up using, the total flour was 6.15 ounces. Second, I used ADY, which I assume is what buzz intends with his recipe. I used six of the eight tablespoons of water to rehydrate the ADY, at 105 degrees F for 10 minutes. I held back the remaining two tablespoons of water in case I needed it later (which I did). Third, in the absence of a recitation of what brand of Kosher salt buzz uses, I elected to use the Mortonís brand of Kosher salt. Fourth, since I did not have any canola oil on hand, I substituted a light olive oil. Piecing everything together and using the Lehmann dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/dough_calculator.html, the dough formulation I ended up with was as follows:

In preparing the dough, I found that I needed all 8 tablespoons of water to get a pancake batter like dough consistency in the bowl as buzz described. I also found that I needed to use a thin, flexible plastic spatula to move the ingredients into the path of the dough hook. The first photo below in this post shows the dough (in the mixer bowl) after the first rest period (30 minutes). The second photo shows the dough after the addition of the remaining flour (1/2 cup). It took only a teaspoon of bench flour to get the finished dough into a smooth round ball. The third photo below shows that dough ball. It was very soft but not wet or even tacky. As noted above, the weight of the dough ball was 11.15 ounces. Since the formula amount is 12.03 ounces, I apparently lost 0.88 ounces during the preparation of the dough through minor losses in the bowl, but it is also possible that my actual weights of the ingredients other than flour and water were different from the values in the dough formulation (where I kept the volume measurements as buzz specified).

I allowed the dough to ferment for about 6 hours before using. The dough rolled out very easily, which came as no surprise given the amount of water and oil in the dough. The dough was quite moist but I tried to minimize the amount of bench flour while rolling out the skin. I did not know whether buzz uses all of the dough to make the 14Ē skin, but that is what I did. I could have rolled the dough out even more thinly but for the first attempt I decided to use all of the dough for the 14" size. On the basis of the 11.15 dough ball weight and 14Ē skin size, I calculated that the thickness factor was 0.0724317. That is the value one would use in the Lehmann dough calculating tool for larger or smaller pizza sizes.

I docked the skin on both sides and placed it in my dark, anodized nonperforated cutter pan from pizzatools.com. Since I calculated that the dough formulation used almost 30% oil, I saw no need to oil the cutter pan. The skin was covered with aluminum foil and baked for 10 minutes on my lowest oven rack position (my oven is an electric oven), at 450 degrees F. The pre-baked skin was then dressed with slices of Sorrento whole-milk mozzarella cheese, 6-in-1 pureed tomatoes right out of the can (with a bit of dried Italian oregano), and Hormel pepperoni slices. The pizza finished baking for 10 minutes on the lowest oven rack position, and for an additional two minutes at the uppermost oven rack position to complete the baking of the cheese and toppings. The temperature was 450 degrees F. The photos in the next post show the finished pizza.

Whether I ended up with something that was like the pizzas that buzz makes, I thought the pizza turned out quite well. As buzz described, the crust was crispy and crackery. And the slices were rigid, not floppy. The crust was not a flaky, layered crispy crust as I have achieved recently with cracker-style pizzas based on modifications of DKMís recipe, but I did not expect that since buzz had posted his recipe in the American style section of the forum, not the Cracker section. The crust made from buzzís recipe derives its crispiness from the high heat transfer characteristics of a large amount of oil, and a long bake time (a total of 22 minutes in my case, including the 10-minute pre-bake and an additional 12 minutes of final bake). Iím glad I tried the recipe. Now I have a better idea of another thin style. Unless and until buzz tells me that I messed up somewhere, about the only change I might make to the recipe is to use less salt, which was very noticeable in the finished crust. Of course, if my weight of flour was off (on the low side), then the percent of salt and other ingredients would come down.

Pete, that pizza does look pretty good. Thanks alot for the photos. It adds so much to understanding the process, the product and the effort in general. It is so helpful when you can actually SEE what others are talking about. I encourage others to learn about and use their digital cameras some more.

I showed the preliminary photos so that buzz might be able to tell me if I was on the right track with the hydration. With a hydration of around 57% in my dough, I was actually expecting to see a lot of bubbling in the crust during the pre-bake. However, there was actually very little. I think the explanation is that with almost 31% oil in my dough it's hard for the moisture trapped in the dough to turn to steam and expand outwardly to form bubbles. I also concluded that the primary purpose of the aluminum foil was to minimize browning of the top of the crust, not to restrict the formation of bubbles.

Another observation I had was that the thicker parts of the crust, for example, at the rim, tasted a lot like a deep-dish crust. I was somewhat expecting that because of the high oil content of the dough. Also, I was aware of the fact that some Chigago-area pizza operators use the same dough for their thin style pizzas as they do for their deep-dish. Tom Lehmann has also commented on this practice both in some of his recipes and in articles. It's an entirely logical practice.

Good job, Peter! That looks like what I make. I use a 12-inch pan, however. This recipe mimics Giordano's thin crust (although at their restaurants they just roll out their deep-dish dough [seee my post on that recipe] even thinner). I also make a more crackery-thin crust by using the same recipe but with only 1 tsp. of oil (this doesn't bubble, either).

Yes, the foil is to allow the bottom to cook first, without cooking the top (to avoid burning of the cheese before the crust is finished).

I don't let mine brown that much on the bottom, but that's a personal choice.

Yes, the crust does have a nice mouth feel. It is tender but with a snap because of the cripiness on the bottom. I liked the pizza a lot.

When you use the 12" pan, do you end up with a couple inches of scrap or do you just fold over the edges of the 14" skin in the form of a rim? Also, what oven rack level do you use? Do you use a dark pan also, as I do?

Had I used one teaspoon of oil, that would have come to about 2.6% by weight of flour. That would have been typical for a cracker-style dough. Normally, I would expect bubbling with around 57% hydration (my dough) but using an oven temperature of 450 degrees F and a pan, especially if the pan is not a dark pan, should keep the bubbling down.

Have you ever practiced the same recipe without using the rest periods? I wasn't quite sure of the logic of the rest periods in your recipe especially since the dough is acidifying all along (because of the yeast) and is not autolysing in the classical sense (with only flour and water). Jeff's dough behaves the same way as yours except that he doesn't use any sugar or oil.

No, i don't have any scrap--it rolls out to fit my pan. I think you have rolled thinner than I do, which is excellent! I have a dark gray pan, very thin.

I use my countertop oven, so I put the par-bake pizza on the bottom rack, near the heating element.

With the recipe using 1 tsp. oil, it is a cracker-style pizza--there is no bubbling.

You're right--a classic autolyse is just flour and water, but this should form gluten stands, anyway, just the same. Jeff doesn't use sugar or oil because he's following strict Neapolitan rules, but I find that without sugar and oil, the pizza tastes too bland.

I just reheated a piece of the 1 tsp. oil version (in a pan on the stove--it restores the crispness to the crust)--it's crisp, but it's tender at the same time, which is what I like!

The other night I made 3 pizzas for some company that we had. Two were deep dish and one was a 14" thin crust. I will describe herein the thin crust version that I tried with great success that was based a lot on Buzz' recipe (as interpreted by Peter). Unfortunately, I was so busy with making and baking all three pizzas, that I only took one picture of the thin crust version and that was only of the skin after pre-baking it for a few minutes.

Mixing by hand with a wooden spoon (as well as with my hands), I set out to make a thin crust for use with my 14" dark, anodized nonperforated cutter pan from pizzatools.com (which I swear by for thin crust pizzamaking). I used Harvest King flour which I sifted before use (don't know exactly why, but I've got into the habit of doing so and with delicious results). I put ADY in 105 degree water for about 7 minutes and used sea salt. Using the expanded dough calculation tool, the formulation I used for the thin crust was as follows:

As you will note, I used 3 different types of oil amounting to 28%, a little less than the 30% that Peter used. I also backed down a little on the amount of ADY and salt from Peter's Buzz thin crust interpretation. And since I put a 15" size in the calculation tool for a 14" pizza, I didn't need to provide for any bowl residue. I mixed everything together (including just a dab of real soft butter) except for 1/2 cup of sifted flour, and let the dough rest thereafter for around 30 minutes. The dough was fairly "oily" and just vaguely resembled a pancake batter. After the rest period, I mixed in the rest of the flour in and maybe even a couple of teaspoons more to get a smooth round finished dough ball. I put the dough ball in a ziplock bag and let it ferment on the counter for 2 hours (it expanded about 50%) and then into the refrigerator for 24 hours.

The next day I took the dough ball out about 2 hours before baking and rolled it out very easily. It was still fairly oily and very soft. I rolled it out at first to around 15" and used the cutter pan (turned upside down) to cut the pizza into a 14" size, took the remaining scrap dough away and tried to put the nice perfect 14" circle of skin onto the cutter pan. Here's where my problems really started. It was so soft and pliable that when I went to lift it and place it in the cutter pan, it virtually fell apart and it was a mess trying to lay the skin in the pan. I tried to press it out back together into a circular fashion, but it did not cooperate. It was such a mess that I threw it all back down on the counter, added the scrap dough back in and re-rolled it all back together.

After rolling it back out to around 14 and 1/2 inches, I had a bright idea. I then rolled the dough up by hand like I've done sometimes with pie dough to better get it into the pan. It worked fairly well, but still fell apart a little when in the cutter pan. Since I was so rushed working on other pizzas, I just docked it and left it as best I could. I think with a little practice, as well as patience, I could better get this part of the job well done.

While not a perfect circle, I decided to pre-bake the skin on the lowest oven rack at 450 degrees F for about 3 or 4 minutes (picture below). After letting it cool on the counter for about 30 minutes, I then put some non-drained 6 in 1 sauce on (mixed with Penzey pizza spices, minced roasted garlic, white pepper, salt, ginger, and honey). After putting on some sausage and pepperoni, I then put some shredded mozzarella and provolone cheese, along with some grated parmesan, and cooked it on the bottom oven rack at the same temperature for around 7 to 9 minutes until nicely browned.

This pizza -- as well as the others -- was a big, big hit. It was very nicely crispy, but in a light or tender kind of way -- if that makes any sense. And the slices were rigid and not floppy just as Peter experienced. And that's the way I like it. It was one of the best thin crust pizzas I've ever made. I definitely want to test this version out further as I think it has some great potential. Kudos to Buzz. In a word . . . Buzz' thin crust pizza was indeed . . . . . . AWESOME !

It looks like I got lucky in fitting my dough skin to my cutter pan. One of the advantages of using a cutter pan, however, is that you can patch the skin to cover holes and even to fill in the spaces around the perimeter. One way to do the patch-up job is to put a bit of water around the area to be patched and press some of the scrap dough onto it. After the skin is pre-baked and subsequently dressed and baked, you won't know that there was ever a patch job.

I didn't sift the flour when I tried buzz's dough recipe because the recipe didn't call for it. It is possible in your case that you increased the hydration by a few percent just because you sifted the flour. With a wet dough, there is a strong likelihood of wrinkles forming and sticking to the rest of the skin.

I'm sure that with some thought you will find a way of improving the transfer process from board to pan. One possibility might be to transpose the rolled out skin onto a sheet of parchment paper and deposit the skin and the parchment paper into the cutter pan. There should be plenty of fat in the dough to get browning without adding more fat to the cutter pan. You might even be able to remove the parchment paper once the skin sets up. I haven't tried using parchment paper, so I can't tell you how well it might work.

Your experience with getting the dough into the pan is a bit puzzling. When I make it, it comes out of the bread machine (after the final 15-minute rest) as sticky, so I just use a little bench flour and it forms into a nice ball; the same is true after the rise (but I don't use a refrigerator rise). Maybe Peter is right about the sifting!

This recipe makes a pizza very similar to a Giordano's thin crust. try it again with just 1 teaspoon of oil to make a cracker crust. You get the same mouth feel (crisp but still tender), but carckery.

At the same time that I did the 14" thin crust reported above, I also made a 9" deep dish pizza based roughly on a similar formulation to the Buzz recipe, especially with the large amount of oil in the recipe. Using the Deep-dish Dough Calculation Tool (I've come to rely on these tools so much now), the following was the simliar formulation that I put together (but using King Arthur AP Flour instead of the Harvest King that I used on the thin crust):

I did everything similar to the 14" thin crust as mentioned above, except that I forgot to do the 30 minute reservation of 1/2 cup of the sifted flour. After a two hour rise in a ziplock bag on the counter (50% rise est.) I put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours and took it out a couple of hours before baking in a 9" straight-sided (2" deep) deep dish Chicago Metallic pan (dark coated from Bed, Bath & Beyond). When I put the dough ball in the Crisco greased pan (which I really didn't need to do because of all the oil in the dough), it was so soft and loose that I had a very difficult time getting the dough to go 1 and 1/2 inches up the side of the pan (and I did not grease the sides), as I normally do for my deep dish pizzas. The dough was still fairly "oily" and the sides that I crimped very hard still fell down a lot. After trying to keep the sides of the dough in the pan up for a while (not very successfully), my bright idea was to pre-bake the deep dish dough quickly for a short while to try to firm up the dough, esp. the sides.

I quickly put it in the 450 degree F oven (lowest rack) for about 4 minutes and it did a nice job of drying it out and holding the dough together somewhat (see picture below). I had never pre-baked the skin for a deep dish pizza before, but this time this one turned out pretty good, if not great. The sides did not hold up as well as I would have liked because it was so soft, but after pre-baking, it held up very nicely. I thereafter added slices of cheese, then the sausage patty along with some pepperoni, then strained 6 in 1 sauce (with similar additions as indicated above for the 14" thin crust, esp. the honey), then some small diced tomatoes (Hunt's small can . . . which was great) and baked first on the middle rack for about 10 minutes, then on the lower rack for about 17 minutes until nicely browned (had to juggle making 3 pizzas). Below is a picture of the dressed 9" pie on the right before baking. The pizza on the left was a 12" normal loowaters formulation deep dish (which also turned out great). Also a picture of the sausage patty that I used in the deep dish (under the sauce, and yes, put on raw, not baked a little beforehand as I did with the thin crust).